Opinion

Happy Mother's Day, you heartless, killer psycho TV moms

Cast members Freddie Highmore and Vera Farmiga from "Bates Motel" attend the A+E Networks 2013 Upfront on Wednesday, May 8, 2013 in New York. (Evan Agostini)

None of the current crop of TV moms is likely to be voted Mother of the Year, unless the ability to put dinner on the table counts for more than mental health.

While still able to feed their offspring, the dark secrets, selfishness and emotional instability of the mothers depicted on TV often get in the way of anything resembling maternal instincts.

It's been a giant leap for TV from the Donna Reed domestic archetype to the happy, single, career-minded mom of Murphy Brown and onward to the quintessential bad mother, Tony's murderous mom Livia Soprano.

Now, the medium seems intent on exploring ever more twisted versions of mommyhood. Consider six examples from this season's standout dramas:

THE DRAGON MOM

Some mothers have extraordinary intuition about their little ones, even a sort of psychic connection. They choose to lavish nurturing, loving care on their darlings. The exiled Daenerys Targaryen (Emilia Clarke) on HBO's "Game of Thrones' is the perfect, psychically atuned mother to her brood of dragons.

Like human teenagers, her beasts sometimes spit fire, but the bond between the growing reptiles and their caregiver has been strong, since even before they hatched.

And like all devoted moms, she has big plans for their future: "When my dragons are grown, we will take back what was stolen from me and destroy those who wronged me! We will lay waste to armies and burn cities to the ground!'

But first, dinner.

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THE SPY MOM

Elizabeth Jennings, Keri Russell's Soviet agent on FX's "The Americans,' packs lunches between assassinations and wig changes. Her heart wasn't in mothering through most of the excellent first season. Only after separating from her arranged marriage and feeling nostalgic about her own mother did she have a realization about possibly losing her kids. Now that her daughter is curious about what Mom's doing in the basement laundry room (where spy paraphernalia is hidden), we can look forward to great mother-daughter conflict in season 2. Guess what? Mom's not downstairs getting her whites whiter. She has a secret life and may be more attached to the Motherland than to the notion of mothering.

THE PSYCHO MOM

Mrs. Bates loves her son Norman. That's why she's turned him into a sick sociopathic mess in her own image. Norman Bates is everything to this single mother, who is dedicated to making their lodging enterprise, the Bates Motel, into a successful business no matter how many manipulations it takes. The kind of mothering portrayed in A&E's "Bates Motel' is what the experts call a soul murderer.

Vera Farmiga is impeccable as the deranged mother of all mothers in Carlton Cuse's reinvention of Hitchcock's character. Freddie Highmore, all pretty skin and sensitive eyes, is well cast as the devoted son.

The "Psycho' prequel takes a hard look at the Oedipal relationship, filling in the backstory of psychosis presented in the original film. Mommy Dearest can deal with rape, murder and motel renovations. She's just not good at letting go of her pathetic teenager Norman.

This is television peeling back layers of crazy to reveal what happens when boundaries are ignored. Once again, we've come a long way from June Cleaver.

THE ICE QUEEN

The paternalistic "Mad Men' have their demons, but the women who serve as browbeaten or raging enablers are even more tormented. No character is more divisive than Betty Draper, now Betty Francis, played by January Jones, who makes the TV Mom list again this year. She finds her children an encumbrance. Superficially put together, a mess beneath the surface, her icy stance toward her offspring pervades the affluent home.

Her relationship with daughter Sally is a particularly rich vein of neurotic drama. Sally is becoming worldly in the 1960s in a way that makes Betty's sheltered 1950s beauty role seem pitiful. Betty recently sought out her stepdaughter in a run-down hippie building in the city (the least credible scene yet). She's tiptoeing into the modern world, not very successfully.

THE TEEN MOM

The teenage rape victim on Sundance Channel's "Top of the Lake' is an accidental mom who disappears at the start of the drama. The girl, Tui, may find it takes a village to care for a baby. The village in this case is an odd commune of older, reclusive women living by an alpine lake in New Zealand.

The theme of motherhood appears throughout Jane Campion's stunning seven-part miniseries, as young detective Robin Griffin (Elisabeth Moss) returns to her hometown to help solve the case of the missing teen. Her relationship with her own mother is fraught with secrets. Rape, incest, murder... it's all here in this bleak but well-constructed exploration of motherhood. Clearly, the widening awareness of the culture at large has emboldened filmmakers to explore the most primally uncomfortable spaces.

THE UNREALIZED MOM

Beyond the focus on ever higher political aspirations, the basis of the marriage of Claire (Robin Wright) and Frank (Kevin Spacey) on Netflix's "House of Cards,' is the agreed-upon absence of children. That was the deal when Frank proposed, and it's been the rule ever since. Claire acknowledged she has had multiple abortions as a result. The power couple give each other a pass on extramarital affairs, but they have a firm prohibition on offspring.

But now Claire, the ruthless Lady Macbeth of the piece, finds herself contemplating the possibility.

Imagine what the Underwood household would be — it's almost unthinkable — if a demanding new addition entered the scene. And imagine what Claire's relationship with her own mother must have been like. Will season 2 continue to tease the idea of motherhood?

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